Baikonur launchsite saw traditional flag-raising ceremony taking place at the pad #17 in front of Cosmonaut hotel.
Roscosmos cosmonauts Oleg Novitsky and Fyodor Yurchikhin raised the flag of the Russian Federation, NASA astronauts Peggy Witson and Jack Fisher – the US flag, ESA astronaut Thomas Pesquet – the flag of France and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli – the flag of Kazakhstan.
Roscosmos corporation representatives, Baikonur city authorities and Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre specialists attended the ceremony.
On the same date following long-standing tradition ISS-50/51 mission back-up crew members went on tour around the city of Baikonur. During this tour the cosmonauts learned more about the history of the city and Kazakh national traditions.
First of all Fyodor Yurchikhin, Jack Fisher and Paolo Nespoli laid flowers to the first cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin monument and the monument to Sergey Korolyov. After that they visited Baikonur City History Museum where they tried on Kazakh traditional suits and left memorable notes in Museum guestbook.
The launch of Soyuz MS-03 spacecraft is scheduled for November 17, 2016.